Wireless mesh networks are gaining popularity because wireless infrastructures are typically easier and less expensive to deploy than wired networks. The wireless mesh networks typically include wired gateways that are wirelessly connected to wireless nodes, or wireless connected directly to client devices. Many wireless nodes can collectively provide a wireless mesh, in which client devices can associate with any of the wireless nodes.
Typically, the wireless nodes are implemented as wireless access points (APs). A typical wireless AP includes a local link interface to communicate with local client devices and a downlink and uplink interfaces to communicate with other APs. Conventional APs utilize the same communication frequency when communicating with other APs. As a result, there may be an interference between an uplink and a downlink communications and may have impact on the signal quality. In addition, communications between the wireless APs typically are in a form of plain text which may be vulnerable to be attacked.
IEEE 802.11 wireless application has long been a problem of delay and latency of its wireless roaming hand-off process. Because WiFi connection of 802.11 physical layer association process and network layer establishment involving IP re-establishment need a long time to complete, an application will get disconnected. This long WiFi hand-over time prevents implementation of real-time applications such as mobile video surveillance and mobile voice conversation, etc. This drawback hinders the development of mobile applications using the most cost effective 802.11 technology.
Traditional mobile virtual private network (VPN) solutions only solve user network equipment IP address remaining the same during roaming to maintain an application alive. However, obtaining a local IP address and switching from one access point (AP) to another AP still have the problem of taking a long time to perform. Thus, VPN is not suitable for true WiFi mobile applications.